I have wrestled with this question for a long time. While with him, I sometimes wondered, ”˜what on earth am I doing here’? Since gaining my freedom, I have looked back on those 4 years 9 months and wondered, ”˜what on earth was wrong with me that I stayed so long’?
I know there are the physiological/psychological factors that compounded my convoluted thinking causing me to believe that I was incapable of leaving him. I know these factors attributed to my inertia and the resultant trauma bonding that held me pinioned in his unholy embrace. But none of these factors explain why an intelligent, well-educated, articulate woman did what I did — before the trauma bonding, the Stockholm Syndrome, the depression, the pain.
Why did I stay?
I stayed because in the process of burying my truth beneath his lies, I turned off my inner voice of reason. I quit listening to myself telling me I had to leave, I had to get away. I gave into despair, helplessness and confusion and gave up on me. I wanted the rosy sunrise of his promises, the gilded cage of his castle in the air, the perfection of his promises of happily ever after.
I stayed because I didn’t want to take responsibility for what was happening in my life, my daughters’ lives and to me.
I stayed because it was easier to stay than to leave. It was easier to take the coward’s way out by staying locked into his machinations than to take the leap into the unknown by leaving him and his lies behind.
I stayed even though I knew he was lying. I knew he was deceiving me. I knew he was manipulating me. I knew all of this but I refused to look at the truth because to look at the truth meant having to look at me — and I was too frightened to do that.
I stayed because I was a victim and I didn’t want to admit it.
As I write this I think about those who will say — but you can’t blame yourself. You didn’t know who he was when you first met him. You went into that relationship with your arms wide open in love and expected to have your love reciprocated in equal measure.
And all of that is true.
None of it matters though when I look at the reasons for why I stayed.
I could walk into a hundred relationships with my arms wide open and still find them empty — because my arms wide-open were filled with my own empty promises that I would treat myself with love and respect, truth and honesty. My lack of clarity in my beliefs, my values, my principles trapped me in his lies because I didn’t know what I stood for.
I stayed, not because of him, but because of me. My weaknesses brought me to my knees. My weaknesses kept me locked inside the web he wove around me.
On the other side of the relationship, revelling in my freedom today, I am willing and able to stand in the naked light and love myself as I state, unequivocally, I stayed because of me.
He abused me. He lied. He deceived. He used terrifying stories to hold me silent. He manipulated my mind and smothered me with his untruths.
But I am the one who chose to believe him. To let go of reason and accept his unreasonable words and actions. Accept his unacceptable behaviour and compromise on myself — not because of who he was, but because of who I was and who I refused to be — independent, strong, uncompromising in my belief in me and what I deserved from love and life.
In my world, post sociopath, I am 100% accountable for me. Post sociopath I cannot hold him accountable for what happens to me today —Just as he is accountable for what he did, I am accountable for what I did, and what I do today.
I stayed because I did not have the courage and strength of character to stand up for me without fear.
I stayed because I believed he could make up for the past. He could make my life all better.
Today, I let him go in peace. Holding onto resentment, bitterness, anger keeps me from living the beautiful life I deserve. Today, I stay away from holding him accountable for what happened to me because I have the courage to take charge of my life today, to be 100% accountable for me today and to make choices that love and support me today.
In stepping fearlessly into my life today, I leave him behind because I know that the past is gone, today is alive and tomorrow is just a dream away. A dream that will come true as long as I walk my path with dignity, grace and ease, 100% accountable for me.
Aloha, LilOrphan;
I understand your statements regarding “transparancy” or “saran wrap”. Like you both, I have always been extremely open and candid. When friends have asked me a question (other than ‘do I look fat in this?’) I have asked them, “do you really want to know the answer?” Because they know I will be totally open and honest with them. But I believe this “transparency” means we do not have secrets, or a hidden motive or agenda, we wear our hearts on our sleeves, and are who we are. There is a beauty in this…in being true to ourselves and to others, so do not let the S take your beautiful openness and trust in humanity from you.
Happy upcoming birthday Aloha. Thanks for all you contribute to this site with your articles, your good solid advice, and your sense of fun!
Peggy:
I wouldn’t normally ask this, but since you have my email already, do you have time to talk tonight via email? I really need someone to talk to today. For whatever reason, things are not getting better and I’m at work, trying to get my head together. Thanks if you can. If not, I understand.
Thanks for the comments, Orphan. These S. do seem to be a combination of all the characteristics of dangerous men.
I wanted to add another thought from this book:
Women with weak boundaries fail to verbalize and take action on what they need. They stay quiet and hope somehow it will work out. But the message your silence sends to a dangerous man is that you consent to his inappropriate behavior.
I made a major step forward today by e-mailing my ex-husband and telling him the truth about this man’s interference and manipulation of me while we were still married. I took responsibility for what I did since the final decision was mine.
Hummingbird,
Good for you! I know your relationship with your ex-husband may not ever be completely healed, but making amends to him, and telling him the truth should lift a burden from your soul. One of the things I think it is important for us to do is to go back to anyone we feel that we have not treated as our own moral code would expect us to do, and making a sincere “clean breast” of it.
A while back my son C and I had a real heart to heart and that is so important. Fortunately our relationship has not only been restored but strengthened—but I lost 8 years of him while he was married to the P-DIL, she isolated him etc. typical stuff. He knew I didn’t approve of her behavior (though I kept my mouth SHUT–big holes iin tongue) LOL
We both had some apologizing to do, and I am glad that we did it.
I also went to several friends of mine that had “let me down” when I tried to talk to them before the “blow up” and they refused to listen to me at the time—my story was “outrageous”—but I didn’t want that to end long term, decades old friendships—in both cases we reaffirmed our relationships.
Unfortunately, a relationship with the Ps, sometimes ruins other relationships we have had for decades. Sometimes they come out better, sometimes, we lose the forever, but at least if we can mend fences enough that neither we nor they have any real “hostility” left, at least we can part friends.
Especially if it is a relative or someone close to our family.
I am so proud OF you and also FOR you! You are a GOOD WOMAN! (((hugs))))
I felt a great relief telling my ex-husband the truth. I owed him an explanation for some of my irrational behavior.
I have to talk to my children as well.
Thanks for all the words of encouragement.
The lies need to be exposed in order to heal and move forward. I was keeping a hidden life as well from my family and unlike the S. I couldn’t deal with it.
Thank you for the hug, Free. I know these times pass and, in my case, are often triggered by hormones. Tend to not dwell on things most of the time and then every so often they jump up and bite at me.
We all respond to childhood abuse in different ways as children and adults. My way was denial and pretending everything was fine. That’s enabled me to be a “great” partner to N’s and P’s because I am already so skilled with sublimating the bad actions of someone else, loving them anyway, and blaming myself. In fact, I’d say I was pre-programmed to love N’s and P’s because of that talent, putting up with the untenable from people I love.
But unless aiming for some sort of twisted sainthood, my being this way earns me very little in life, except shame, sorrow and more self-blame. Sooo….no mas. I didn’t quite go the same direction, although probably I did and still seek validation, not of my personality or being liked because that always came very easily, but that my experiences and perceptions are accurate because my entire family pretended like what was going on was not going on when I was a kid. They still do. So the voicelessness I also understand and share with you – writing does really help that.
Did you light your candle, play your music and write? I was at work last night, utterly useless and weepy, but fortunately alone. Today will be better and so will tomorrow.
Hummingbird:
The N’s and P’s project their faults onto their partner. By forcing you to lead a “double life” as well, he was creating company for himself, corrupting you with his own failings.
Now that you’re out of the fog and see that life was never really yours, but you somehow participated in in nevertheless, you naturally would feel great relief telling the truth and no longer being a part of it. You didn’t own the desire for the behavior, so now it must seem incredibly foreign to you that you could do that in the first place.
I suspect mine had multiple lives because he was so secretive and able to compartmentalize, and agree that those are a very dangerous breed, because the entire premise requires us to ignore our own eyes and ears. They become more blatant in time with the fact other things are going on behind the scenes but by then we’re hooked and unable to move in other directions.
Hummingbird,
It is wonderful that you told the truth to your ex husband. Talking to your children will probably make you feel even better. After years of keeping quiet on my S stepmom’s abuse, I finally wrote a letter to my dad this year. I told him that I didn’t blame him, but that his wife caused me more pain than anyone else I’ve ever known. Just telling the truth felt like a huge weight off my shoulders. I haven’t been able to have a heart to heart with him since then, but he has at least acknowledged that he knows what I am talking about. It is a sticky situation because he’s still with her and they have school age kids together. She is scared that I am going to tell him everything so she tries to make sure we talk as little as possible.
You are completely justified to be upset that people act “ashamed” about your abuse. That is ridiculous, but sadly it’s the way a lot of people act because they can’t handle the subject. It might also be due to the fact that they have unresolved issues they’d rather not deal with. I hate that feeling, because if you’re telling them you trust them and expect that they would try to understand and support you. Instead, they just get all uncomfortable and try to change the subject or something. Ugh.
I never tell anyone about my story anymore unless they start talking about the subject of abuse in a way that shows they understand. Otherwise, I don’t waste my breath.
I think what LilOrphan was saying about the “double life” thing can also be applicable to childhood abuse. It is so true that they create company for themselves and trap you in a web of secrecy that, especially as a child, you blame yourself for. The shame of being forced to participate in that double life many times overrides the desire to tell someone you trust that you are being abused. The abusers find a way to make you feel like it is your fault and project their own depravity onto you. I think getting rid of that projection takes a lot of effort because it gets to be ingrained in your head that you are to blame. That is something that I had to work really hard on and am still working on.
Sometimes, especially after a dream about childhood stuff, I get washed over with feelings from the past. When I have those dreams (and they have become rarer as time goes on) I feel like it is a way for my brain to purge those old feelings out. Like if something you ate makes you sick, you have to see it a second time when it’s on the way out. lol but at least then it’s out of your system. It can’t poison you anymore.
LilOrphan,
I know how you feel about those crappy days where everything just gets to you all over again. A part of being strong is letting yourself break down and feel things sometimes, as much as it sucks. I think we could all use a smelly candle or two. Hope your tomorrow is better. 🙂
Absolutely, Ariadne, this:
“I think what LilOrphan was saying about the “double life” thing can also be applicable to childhood abuse.”
Yes! Think that for better or worse, we were raised to be the perfect foils for such furthered abuses, to “best” participate in the dual life of these types, because we have our own duality since childhood and somehow managed to live, and often thrive, within such dichotomous circumstance.
Most people would walk away from the P immediately, even if love had grown, when they see the P begin to “splinter” into two faces, into Jekyll/Hyde. But we who grew up in a conspiracy of silence, a world of two lives separate: the public face of the family and the very different private face, had to learn how to both love and hate the perpetrators of our abuse.
We had to learn to foster and maintain normalcy in a life that was anything but.
Now, this is their weapon against us getting unhooked, and is also the way of keeping us – we relate to this environment subconsciously as “home” for us. Even while knowing “home” is a dangerous place, there is something familiar and almost comforting about it.
But it is also our way out. It is our way out because we really do have love, empathy, hope, and have learned to keep those things in the face of almost overwhelming odds, ever since childhood.
We have the very things they only obtain for a short period of time through mirroring us, and we have them despite childhoods that might otherwise have caused us to turn those things off. I think sometimes this makes them angry….that the P’s believe we shouldn’t have those qualities they do not have, that we have no reason to be so hopeful or filled with love.
But they come into our lives and stay in on this fault-line that many people don’t have, this ability to carry two opposed feelings at one time.
My feeling, anyway, is that if we can strengthen and integrate our negative childhood abuse memories into our current selves, if we can learn to embrace all of it better, we’re less likely targets for them.
Not sure if any of this makes sense, as I’m just developing some ideas that have been stewing for awhile.
Today is better. Still a little down, but it feels like mourning is real and suitable — for a brief period of time. No hiding from ourselves, because that’s unhealthy.
I only wish I had the courage to let go. He has me in debt so bad I am holding on for a payoff…which may never come. He has a large law suit pending against 2 MV carriers.